A very nice BBC documentary on Master Nietzsche in four parts (there is a video on youtube which has the same documentary in one whole, although the quality is not as good). I'd very much recommend it to individuals who are discovering Satanism for the first time.

Unfortunately, it suffers a little bit from the modern academic move to make Nietzsche’s philosophy more palatable to the general herd at the expense of some of his most powerful ideas. Still, there are some very beautiful German landscapes in between some of the most profound insights and watching is a very pleasant way to wind down...

It should be painfully self evident that modern academia presents Nietzsche's philosophy as palatable for the herd - a sickness so subtle, and so convincing is its demagoguery. Slave morality cloaked in a white lab coat! I am proud to venture and say LaVey was guilty of Nietzschean misrepresentation - and contemporary Satanism, a painful embarrassment!

And who am I to say such a thing? I am not the issue here, but the very nature of what is always harsher and more severe! The nature of will to power is insatiable - and who should deny this truth but him for all his deep down goodness in his nature.

The tone of voice expressed toward Nietzsche's concept of the Ubermenschen maxim and how this influenced Nazi ideology is prevalent across internet 'interpretations' of Nietzschean axiology, in countless essays -- 'misinterpretation' they say, and in such a tone that would so modestly sway you, and such solemn eyes, such an insipid Christ like temperament disgusts me intimately! Indeed misinterpretation is the matter! Alas not in retrospect to harshness and severity, in the light of the Ubermensch maxim, so clear in nature - why made out to be something of ambiguity? To face away from pitiless concision. The convincing hallucination of those who see the world with sunken, wide eyes.

And what sickness have we diagnosed? Slave morality attempting to present evil in as bad a light as possible - precariously presented truth, tentative, stammering and unsure of itself, such modesty to having internalised a temperament too terrible for them to naturally stomach. WWII Nazism was simply not exemplary enough of the Ubsermensch and so by daring to overcome its example, naturally, we see the nature of aristocracy itself, in glorious irony - in a world where human emotions are trivial, essentially, Nazi ideology was not nearly enough of the unrestrained harshness and severity of an utterly barbarian caste, and let that be known as the precise 'misinterpretation'.

The thing to remember about Nietzsche is he has been co-opted by just about every political and ideological movement that has sprung up for him.

Anarchists have found in Nietzsche a champion of relativism and individualism while overlooking his disdain for them and the fact their resentiment puts them completely at odds with Nietzsche. Benjamin Tucker was one of the prominent early American anarchists and was hugely influenced by Nietzsche, being one of the first to translate his works for the American public. Emma Goldsmith, anarchist and feminist, was a self-admitted Nietzschean despite his perceived misogynistic undertones.

The nationalists and Fascists loved Nietzsche because of his Übermensche, however, they neglected his his extremely anti-nationalistic stance (he could be thought of as an early proponent of something like the European Union) and his support for racial miscegenation. Nietzsche, for what it is worth, praised the Jewish nation than the German one far more times in his writing. He was vehemently anti-statist. His misappropriation by the 20th century nationalists comes, unfortunately, by way of his sister who was married to a prominent German anti-Semite (another movement hated by Nietzsche). She cashed in on her brother's intellectual prowess and used him to gain social standing amongst the leading nationalists of her time.

Nietzsche's Übermensche is more of an alchemical and occult transformation (in a loose sense) than a biological, Darwinian one, much to the dismay of Social Darwinists. Nietzsche did not believe in evolution as Darwin had postulated, more than likely as it states from nothing, something. This goes against the more aristocratic strains of Nietzsche's thought. For him, man was descending into mediocrity, not rising above it. This has historical precedence in the Vedic and Teutonic conceptions of time, which are cyclic. Nietzsche has written on this and seems to give more merit towards it than the general linear concept of time.

So really, who is Nietzsche for? I think that he is for the individual; certainly not for the crowd. But not just any individual, for certain individuals. In this we see remnants of the aristocratic and meritocratic milieu that was prevalent in 19th century Europe. Nietzsche said no man of his time could be considered the Übermensche but a few men throughout history had come close, namely Julius Caesar, Napolean Bonaparte and Jesus Christ (Christ went in the wrong direction with it though, denying life instead of affirming it). These men all shunned the conventional morals and wisdom of their given social spheres and established their own, thus having great influence over masses of people. This is without question a Satanic ideal, although, we can argue very easily that amongst Satanists this is hardly ever realized and most Satanists belong to the herd. Even amongst the "elite" there are followers and leaders.

He really is a greatly misunderstood figure, I don't claim to even understand him as I think the best we can hope for is a general, cursory understanding of the materials given. We will never understand his motives. To some, he is this towering deity of philosophy while to others he was a sad, strange syphilitic man who had a mental breakdown talking to a horse. I tend to fall somewhere in the middle. The BBC "Human, All Too Human" series is a good, albeit introductory, look at the major existentialist writers. There are actually two other episodes, one focusing on Martin Heidegger and the other on Jean-Paul Sartre. I recommend both of those over the Nietzsche episode, although with Heidegger they fall into the tired old liberal trap of harping on the man's involvement with National Socialism. The Sartre one is very good, it provides first hand accounts from the man himself and his associates.